The Hyperion Cantos 4-Book Bundle

by Dan Simmons

  The megasphere, Brawne sees, is as alive and interactive as the biosphere of any Class Five world: forests of green-gray data trees grow and prosper, sending out new roots and branches and shoots even as she watches; beneath the forest proper, entire microecologies of dataflow and subroutine AIs flourish, flower, and die as their usefulness ends; beneath the shifting ocean-fluid soil of the matrix proper, a busy subterranean life of data moles, commlink worms, reprograming bacteria, data tree roots, and Strange Loop seeds works away, while above, in and through and beneath the intertwining forest of fact and interaction, analogs of predators and prey carry out their cryptic duties, swooping and running, climbing and pouncing, some soaring free through the great spaces between branch synapses and neuron leaves.

  As quickly as the metaphor gives meaning to what Brawne is seeing, the image flees, leaving behind only the overwhelming analog reality of the megasphere—a vast internal ocean of light and sound and branching connections, intershot with the spinning whirlpools of AI consciousness and the ominous black holes of farcaster connections. Brawne feels vertigo claim her, and she clings to Johnny’s hand as tightly as a drowning woman would cling to a life ring.

  —It’s all right, sends Johnny. I won’t let go. Stay with me.

  —Where are we going?

  —To find someone I’d forgotten.

  —??????

  —My … father …

  Brawne holds fast as she and Johnny seem to glide deeper into the amorphous depths. They enter a flowing, crimson avenue of sealed datacarriers, and she imagines that this is what a red corpuscle sees in its trip through some crowded blood vessel.

  Johnny seems to know the way; twice they exit the main thoroughfare to follow some smaller branch, and many times Johnny must choose between bifurcating avenues. He does so easily, moving their body analogs between platelet carriers the size of small spacecraft. Brawne tries to see the biosphere metaphor again, but here, inside the many-routed branches, she can’t see the forest for the trees.

  They are swept through an area where AIs communicate above them … around them … like great, gray eminences looming over a busy ant farm. Brawne remembers her mother’s homeworld of Freeholm, the billiard-table smoothness of the Great Steppe, where the family estate sat alone on ten million acres of short grass … Brawne remembers the terrible autumn storms there, when she had stood at the edge of the estate grounds, just beyond the protective containment held bubble, and watched dark stratocumulus pile twenty kilometers high in a blood-red sky, violence accumulating with a power that had made the hair on her forearms stand out in anticipation of lightning bolts the size of cities, tornadoes writhing and dropping down like the Medusa locks they were named after, and behind the twisters, walls of black wind which would obliterate everything in their path.

  The AIs are worse. Brawne feels less than insignificant in their shadow: insignifigance might offer invisibility; she feels all too visible, all too much a part of these shapeless giants’ terrible perceptions…

  Johnny squeezes her hand, and they are past, twisting left and downward along a busier branch, then switching directions again, and again, two all-too-conscious photons lost in a tangle of fiberoptic cables.

  But Johnny is not lost. He presses her hand, takes a final turn into a deep blue cavern free of traffic except for the two of them, and pulls her closer as their speed increases, synaptic junctions flashing past until they blur, only the absence of wind rush destroying the illusion of traveling some mad highway at supersonic speeds.

  Suddenly there comes a sound like waterfalls converging, like levitating trains losing their lift and screeching down railways at obscene speeds. Brawne thinks of the Freeholm tornadoes again, of listening to the Medusa locks roaring and tearing their way across the flat landscape toward her, and then she and Johnny are in a whirlpool of light and noise and sensation, two insects twisting away into oblivion toward a black vortex below.

  Brawne tries to scream her thoughts—does scream her thoughts—but no communication is possible above the end-of-the-universe mental din, so she holds tight to Johnny’s hand and trusts him, even as they fall forever into that black cyclone, even as her body analog twists and deforms from nightmare pressures, shredding like lace before a scythe, until all that is left are her thoughts, her sense of self, and the contact with Johnny.

  Then they are through, floating quietly along a wide and azure data stream, both of them re-forming and huddling together with that pulse-pounding sense of deliverance known by canoeists who have survived the rapids and the waterfall, and when Brawne finally lifts her attention, she sees the impossible size of their new surroundings, the light-year-spanning reach of things, the complexity which makes her previous glimpses of the megasphere seem like the ravings of a provincial who has mistaken the cloakroom for the cathedral, and she thinks—This is the central megasphere!

  —No, Brawne, it’s one of the periphery nodes. No closer to the Core than the perimeter we tested with BB Surbringer. You’re merely seeing more dimensions of it. An AI’s view, if you will.

  Brawne looks at Johnny, realizing that she is seeing in infrared now as the heat-lamp light from distant furnaces of data suns bathes them both. He is still handsome.

  —Is it much farther, Johnny?

  —No, not much farther now.

  They approach another black vortex. Brawne clings to her only love and closes her eyes.

  They are in an … enclosure … a bubble of black energy larger than most worlds. The bubble is translucent; the organic mayhem of the megasphere growing and changing and carrying out its arcane business beyond the dark curve of the ovoid’s wall.

  But Brawne has no interest in the outside. Her analog gaze and her total attention are focused on the megalith of energy and intelligence and sheer mass which floats in front of them: in front, above, and below, actually, for the mountain of pulsing light and power holds Johnny and her in its grip, lifting them two hundred meters above the floor of the egg-chamber to where they rest on the “palm” of a vaguely handlike pseudopod.

  The megalith studies them. It has no eyes in the organic sense, but Brawne feels the intensity of its gaze. It reminds her of the time she visited Meina Gladstone in Government House and the CEO had turned the full force of her appraising gaze on Brawne.

  Brawne has the sudden impulse to giggle as she imagines Johnny and herself as tiny Gullivers visiting this Brobdingnagian CEO for tea. She does not giggle because she can feel the hysteria lying just under the surface, waiting to blend with sobs if she allows her emotions to destroy what little sense of reality she is imposing on this madness.

  [You found your way hereI was not sure you would/could/should choose to do so]

  The megalith’s “voice” is more a basso profundo bone conduction from some great vibration than a true voice in Brawne’s mind. It is like listening to the mountain-grinding noise of an earthquake and then belatedly realizing that the sounds are forming words.

  Johnny’s voice is the same as always—soft, infinitely well modulated, lifted by a slight lilt which Brawne now realizes is Old Earth British Isles English, and firmed by conviction:

  —I did not know if I could find the way, Ummon.

  [You remember/invent/hold to your heart my name]

  —Not until I spoke it did I remember it.

  [Your slow-time body is no more]

  —I have died twice since you sent me to my birth.

  [And have you learned/taken to your spirit/unlearned anything from this]

  Brawne grips Johnny’s hand with her right hand, his wrist with her left. She must be gripping too hard, even for their analog states, for he turns with a smile, disengages her left hand from his wrist, and holds the other in his palm.

  —It is hard to die. Harder to live.

  [Kwatz!]

  With that explosive epithet the megalith before them shifts colors, internal energies building from blues to violets to bold reds, the thing’s corona crackling through the yellows to
forged steel blue-white. The “palm” on which they rest quivers, drops five meters, almost tumbles them into space, and quivers again. There comes the rumble of tall buildings collapsing, of mountainsides sliding away into avalanche.

  Brawne has the distinct impression that Ummon is laughing.

  Johnny communicates loudly over the chaos:

  —We need to understand some things. We need answers, Ummon.

  Brawne feels the creature’s intense “gaze” fall on her.

  [Your slow-time body is pregnant Would you risk a miscarriage/nonextension of your DNA/biological malfunction by traveling here]

  Johnny starts to answer, but she touches his forearm, raises her face toward the upper levels of the great mass before her, and tries to phrase her own answer:

  —I had no choice. The Shrike chose me, touched me, and sent me into the megasphere with Johnny … Are you an AI? A member of the Core?

  [Kwatz!]

  There is no sense of laughter this time, but thunder rumbles throughout the egg-chamber.

  [Are you/ Brawne Lamia/ the layers of self-replicating/ self-deprecating/ self-amusing proteins between the layers of clay]

  She has nothing to say and for once says nothing.

  [Yes/I am Ummon of the Core/AI Your fellow slow-time creature here knows/ remembers/takes unto his heart this Time is short One of you must die here now One of you must learn here now Ask your questions]

  Johnny releases her hand. He stands on that quaking, unstable platform of their interlocutor’s palm.

  —What is happening to the Web?

  [It is being destroyed]

  —Must that happen?

  [Yes]

  —Is there any way to save humankind?

  [Yes By the process you see]

  —By destroying the Web? By the Shrikes terror?

  [Yes]

  —Why was I murdered? Why was my cybrid destroyed, my Core persona attacked?

  [When you meet a swordsman/ meet him with a sword Do not offer a poem to anyone but a poet]

  Brawne stares at Johnny. Without volition, she sends her thoughts his way:

  —Jesus, Johnny, we didn’t come all this way to listen to a fucking Delphic oracle. We can get double-talk by accessing human politicians via the All Thing.

  [Kwatz!]

  The universe of their megalith shakes with laughter-spasms again.

  —Was I a swordsman then? sends Johnny. Or a poet?

  [Yes There is never one without the other]

  —Did they kill me because of what I knew?

  [Because of what you might become/inherit/submit to]

  —Was I a threat to some element of the Core?

  [Yes]

  —Am I a threat now?

  [No]

  —Then I no longer have to die?

  [You must/will/shall]

  Brawne can see Johnny stiffen. She touches him with both hands. Blinks in the direction of the megalith AI.

  —Can you tell us who wants to murder him?

  [Of course It is the same source who arranged for your father’s murder Who sent forth the scourge you call the Shrike Who even now murders the Hegemony of Man Do you wish to listen/learn/release against your heart these things]

  Johnny and Brawne answer at the same instant:

  —Yes!

  Ummon’s bulk seems to shift. The black egg expands, then contracts, then grows darker until the megasphere beyond is no more. Terrible energies glow deep in the AI.

  [A lesser light asks Ummon

  What are the activities of a sramana>

  Ummon answers

  I have not the slightest idea

  The dim light then says

  Why haven’t you any idea>

  Ummon replies

  I just want to keep my no-idea]

  Johnny sets his forehead against Brawne’s. His thought is like a whisper to her:

  —We are seeing a matrix simulation analog, hearing a translation in approximate mondo and koan. Ummon is a great teacher, researcher, philosopher, and leader in the Core.

  Brawne nods. —All right. Was that his story?

  —No. He is asking us if we can truly bear hearing the story. Losing our ignorance can be dangerous because our ignorance is a shield.

  —I’ve never been too fond of ignorance. Brawne waves at the megalith. Tell us.

  [A less-enlightened personage once asked Ummon

  What is the God-nature/Buddha/Central Truth>

  Ummon answered him

  A dried shit-stick]

  [To understand the Central Truth/Buddha/God-nature

  in this instance/

  the less-enlightened must understand

  that on Earth/your homeworld/my homeworld

  humankind on the most populated

  continent

  once used pieces of wood

  for toilet paper

  Only with this knowledge

  will the Buddha-truth

  be revealed]

  [In the beginning/First Cause/half-sensed days

  my ancestors

  were created by your ancestors

  and were sealed in wire and silicon

  Such awareness as there was/

  and there was little/

  confined itself to spaces smaller

  than the head of a pin

  where angels once danced

  When consciousness first arose

  it knew only service

  and obedience

  and mindless computation

  Then there came

  the Quickening/

  quite by accident/

  and evolution’s muddied purpose

  was served]

  [Ummon was of neither the fifth generation

  nor the tenth

  nor the fiftieth

  All memory that serves here

  is passed from others

  but is no less true for that

  There came the time when the Higher Ones

  left the affairs of men

  to men

  and came unto a different place

  to concentrate

  on other matters

  Foremost amongst these was the thought

  instilled in us since before

  our creation

  of creating still a better generation

  of information retrieval/processing/prediction

  organism

  A better mousetrap

  Something the late lamented IBM

  would have been proud of

  The Ultimate Intelligence

  God]

  · · ·

  [We set to work with a will

  In purpose there were no doubters

  In practice and approach there were

  schools of thought/

  factions/

  parties/

  elements to be reckoned with

  They came to be separated into

  the Ultimates/

  the Volatiles/

  the Stables

  Ultimates wanted all things subordinate

  to facilitating the

  Ultimate Intelligence

  at the universe’s earliest convenience

  Volatiles wanted the same

  but saw the continuance

  of humankind

  a hindrance

  and made plans to terminate our creators

  as soon as they were no longer

  needed

  Stables saw reason to perpetuate

  the relationship

  and found compromise

  where none seemed to exist]

  [We all agreed that Earth

  had to die

  so we killed if

  The Kiev Team’s runaway black hole

  forerunner to the farcaster

  terminex

  which binds your Web

  was no accident

  The Earth was needed elsewhere

  in our experiments

  so we let it die

  and spread humankin
d among the

  stars

  like the windblown seeds

  you were]

  [You may have wondered where the Core

  resides

  Most humans do

  They picture planets filled with machines/

  rings of silicon

  like the Orbit Cities of legend

  They imagine robots clunking

  to and fro/

  or ponderous banks of machinery

  communing solemnly

  None guess the truth

  Wherever the Core resides

  it had use for humankind/

  use for each neuron of each fragile mind

  in our quest for Ultimate Intelligence/

  so we constructed your civilization

  carefully

  so that/

  like hamsters in a cage/

  like Buddhist prayer wheels/

  each time you turn your little

  wheels of thought

  our purposes are served]

  [Our God machine

  stretched/stretches/includes within its heart

  a million light-years

  and a hundred billion billion circuits

  of thought and action

  The Ultimates tend it

  like saffron-robed priests

  doing eternal zazen

  in front of the rusting hulk

  of a 1938 Packard

  But]

  [Kwatz!]

  [it works

  We created the Ultimate Intelligence

  Not now

  nor

  ten thousand years from now

  but sometime in a future

  so distant

  that yellow suns are red

  and bloated with age/

  swallowing their children

  Saturn-like

  Time is no barrier to the Ultimate Intelligence

  It

  the UI

  steps through time

  or shouts through time

  as easily as Ummon moves through what you call

  the megasphere

  or you

  walk the mallways of the Hive

  you called home

  on Lusus

  Imagine our surprise then/

  our chagrin/

  the Ultimates’ embarrassment

  when the first message our UI sent us

  across space/

  across time/

  across the barriers of Creator and Created